


Dreamcatcher

by PeachyPuffin



Category: Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure (Cartoon)
Genre: Denial of Feelings, Fluff and Angst, Inspired by Varian and the Seven Kingdoms - Kaitlyn Ritter & Anna Lencioni, M/M, Nightmares, uhhhhhh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-30
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:28:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28418376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PeachyPuffin/pseuds/PeachyPuffin
Summary: During their journey for the eternal library, Varian and Hugo must break off from the group in a puedo-side mission. From their combined crush-denial, a sleeping trap is enabled.
Relationships: Hugo/Varian (Disney: Varian and the Seven Kingdoms)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 36





	Dreamcatcher

**Author's Note:**

> I just wanted to state an ENORMOUS thank you towards armajesty! They helped a lot with editing and keeping up my motivation whilst writing.
> 
> This was written a while ago for a varigo zine, but I can finally post it! Also, I have no clue what I'm doing and it's probably really confusing. *_*

“Hugo?....HUGO!”

“What? I’m right here, no need to shout Goggles,” Hugo groaned. His head felt like lead, while all his senses seemed to have turned into cotton. Standing hunched over, he slowly looked around with fuzzy vision to find Varian.

“Goggles? Hey, Varian! Where’d you go?”

Even with limited eyesight, he could tell that he was surrounded by fog, nothing else.  _ Nobody _ else. He could feel the bone-chilling air flit around his figure, willing his body to give up and leave Varian be. He shook his head.  _ I’m not going to--I don’t  _ want _ to leave him. _

As Hugo stepped forwards to continue his search, he was overwhelmed with a dizzy spell and sent tumbling down. Just as his face made contact with the ground below him, the momentum hurled him through the floor and he  _ sat up?  _ Hugo was now sitting on top of his workbench, surrounded by a storm grey landscape. Beneath the table was a vast ocean of black ink, rippling from his sharp movements. The cotton appeared to have been ripped away, as his senses became sharp and alert.

A scream echoed in the dark. 

Hugo’s head shot towards the sound. A dimly lit, short figure appeared in the distance. Varian stood, only 50 meters away, with a terrified look on his face and his palm reached out. Hugo noticed that his cru-- _ friend’s _ outline became smaller and smaller as each moment passed, the ink-like substance crawling to cover more and more of him up.  _ He was being pulled beneath the ground. _

He jumped off of the workbench and ran like lightning towards Varian’s sinking figure.  _ Please. I need to get to him. I need to save him. _ The further he traveled, the slower his movements became. It was as if the air gradually transitioned into water, rejecting his advances forward.

Varian disappeared beneath the ground.

_ No. No, no, no. This couldn’t be happening. _ Hugo starred at Varian’s previous location with wide eyes. Then he felt a tug against his legs.

Hugo looked down to find his shoes were slowly sinking into the black ink. It wasn’t rising like a flooded room, but truly pulling him downwards into nothingness. Panic laced his features. If Varian couldn’t escape the black ink, how could he? 

The blackness latched onto his arms.

He had no alchemical solutions, no mechanical devices, no friends who could help. 

It wrapped around his torso and weighed his shoulders down.

He had nothing. 

The ink covered his head. 

He  _ became _ nothing.

<\------------->

“Hugo?....HUGO!” Varian shouted as he witnessed Hugo faint. The blonde had appeared woozy and non-responsive for a short moment before completely collapsing onto the ground.

_ Stupid, stupid Varian _ , he thought. He had already found the bronze key they were searching for prior to Hugo collapsing.  _ An hour before! _ The only reason they were still there was because Varian had been selfishly stalling in order to spend more time with him.  _ Of course, the one time you don’t take the situation seriously, everything goes wrong _ . 

Moving out of his shock, Varian rushed over to where Hugo lay. Relief flashed over his face when he checked the older alchemist’s pulse.  _ Good, he’s breathing--not dead, just asleep.  _ Next to Hugo, still clutched in his hand, was the odd-looking dreamcatcher that seemed to have caused his dizzy state in the first place. It had an indigo string for the web, wrapped across a dark circular wooden frame. Hanging from the bottom was not in fact the typical set of feathers, but rather a singular aconite flower.  _ Why and how did this cause him to lose consciousness? _

Varian dragged his cru-- _ friend’s _ body towards the closest wall and propped him up against the nearby bookshelf. He then grabbed a few cushions scattered around the room and placed them under Hugo’s head.

Crouched over his companion, Varian couldn’t help but notice how relaxed his facial features were.  _ Y’know, when he’s sleeping he looks really cu--nope stop that. That is exactly what got you into this situation in the first place. _ He stood and glanced around the room.  _ There must be something in here that’ll tell me what happened. _

There in fact  _ was _ something containing useful information for Hugo’s predicament. After half-an-hour of thorough searching, Varian came across a collection of notebooks. Each one was filled to the brim with pages dedicated to hypothetical designs of dreamcatchers. Each design provided a different property and capability. He quickly skimmed through the pages to find an indigo drawing that resembled the item Hugo held.  _ Aha! _

_ ‘The Aconite Dreamcatcher: The flower is poisonous, means caution, wariness, and death, is overall negative, still pretty.  _

_ Possible Effects: Foreboding dreams/nightmares? Maybe heightened anxious state? Is death a possibility? *Make sure to look into possibility of death.’  _

Aside from the writer addressing themself in their notes, something about the text bothered Varian.  _ Why would it cause Hugo to sleep? What was it about that dreamcatcher that was different from the design? _ Looking over the drawing he could tell the wood was the same, across  _ all _ of the drawings it was the same. Same shape, same type, same coloration. That meant that the only difference between the version on paper and the one in real life was...  _ the string _ .

Instead of a plain white string creating the webbing, the material was colored a dark, glittering indigo. Varian once again scanned through the notes for any sign of string experimentation. In the third notebook, he found a section of six back-to-back pages logging the person’s investigation involving the string and alchemy.  _ Finally! Something he already knew! _

Reading through the six pages, he discovered that the strings were coated in different alchemical solutions, the indigo one being a sleeping powder. The one  _ he _ invented _. _ Blah, blah, blah, other string observations, blah, blah. The notebook went on and on about a plethora of topics, but after a while, it finally showed the alchemy/string combination for ‘alertness,’ something Varian could only assume would counteract the sleeping powder.

The young alchemist set to work on the task. Thankfully, since the supposed owner of the house he and Hugo broke into had a large amount of research into this specific topic, all the materials he needed were there. Then after a quick look at the notebook, he found a flower that seemed to ‘cure madness’ and ‘provide emotional balance,’ or something along those lines. Combining the string, the alyssum flower he found in a pile, and a wooden frame from a storage box, he successfully made a dreamcatcher.

Varian walked over to Hugo’s sleeping form and began to set up the experimental solution. He hung the newly made dreamcatcher over Hugo so that it was just barely grazing his head, utilizing a stack of books to reach high enough, before using a cloth to pull away the purple nightmare device in order to avoid falling ill to the same effects. He then crouched down near Hugo’s side, wrapped his arms around himself, and looked on with concerned eyes.

A few moments passed. Then a few more. Varian could only hunch down further, silently watch, and hope that his plan would work. That everything would be okay. Despite staring straight at the older alchemist, Varian became too caught up in his thoughts to notice the slight shift in body position, the fluttering of eyelids. Hugo suddenly jolted, causing Varian to do so as well.

“VARIAN! You--you’re okay!” Hugo’s face then transitioned from shock to relief. Varian himself was so surprised that he almost didn’t realize when Hugo’s hands latched onto his face and Hugo’s lips met his.

Everything felt soft and warm, like absorbing heat from the sun after being wrapped in a fuzzy blanket, completely protected from the then faded surroundings. His shoulders and arms relaxed, losing any previously held tension, while his heart felt like fluttering through the sky and soaring through the puffy clouds. After a few seconds of elation, Varian finally registered what happened. He stumbled backwards a few feet and, standing completely stunned, stared at his blonde teammate with his mouth gaped.

Hugo opened his eyes and stared at the floor, his lack-of-awareness evident. He then closed his eyes once more and shook his head.

“D-did I just--” he started.

“Mhm,” Varian responded, his eyes wide and face red, still recovering from the shock.

“Well… that was one way to confess, sweetcheeks,” Hugo broke the tense silence.

“You... I... Didn’t… Wha?” Varian mumbled, trying to process everything that just happened.

“Or you actually didn’t want to… You know what, just forget it,” he said, building up his mental guard once more.

“I didn’t thi--hey, wait, can we talk abou--”

“It’s fine,” he glared at Varian. “Let’s just find the key and return to the group.”

“Oh, I, uh, I already um, found it.”

Hugo looked confused.

“When you were knocked out, I mean,” Varian added quickly.

“Okay then,” Hugo said. “We should head back to the campsite.”

“Yeah, we probably should.”

The pair left the building and walked back in silence. Varian couldn’t stop himself from looking over to Hugo, who kept his eyes on the horizon and a guarded expression on his face.

“Hey, Hugo?”

“What?” Hugo responded steely as he stiffened.

Varian took a deep breath and slowly exhaled to calm his nerves. He then carefully grabbed Hugo’s hand with his own and said, “I like you too.”

Varian shyly glanced up at the taller alchemist’s face as Hugo looked down at him. They exchanged a slight smile. Everything would be okay.


End file.
